At The End Of The Day
by Maxie Kay
Summary: How do the NCIS team feel when they leave work and how do they cope at the end of a bad day? A series of introspective one-shots, each focusing on a different team member. CH.4: Deeks
1. Chapter 1

**At The End Of The Day**

**An NCIS Fanfiction**

**By Maxie Kay**

_A series of short one-shots, exploring how the team wind down after a mission_

At the end of the day, Callen is reluctant to leave the Mission. He is normally the first to arrive in the morning, and the last to leave each evening. Not counting Hetty, of course. But then Hetty seems to be omnipresent, as well as omnipotent. OSP is fashioned in no small way by her personality and Callen often wonders how much she has influenced him, but he hasn't quite come up with an answer yet. For a long time, he never left the Mission at nights, preferring to sleep on a couch, while everyone politely pretended they either didn't know, or that there was nothing peculiar about a grown man with no home to go to. Their tactfulness had been a pleasant surprise. And then Hetty had to go and change everything, by getting him that damn house. Somehow, Hetty knows everything – or at least she gives the impressions that she does. Sometimes Callen wonders if Hetty knows more than she has divulged to him about his past, but he reasons that she wouldn't be so cruel. She knows how much the past haunts him and how deeply it has coloured his present. But she still shouldn't have interfered and got him committed to that house. There was no need for that. He doesn't need that – he never has.

At the end of the day, Callen goes home alone to his empty house. It's just a house, although once it was a home, filled with memories, as well as the normal detritus of family life, along with a normal compliment of furniture. All that is gone now and his footsteps echo on the bare floorboards as he walks through the empty rooms. He is reluctant to stamp his personality on the place and senses that maybe this sparseness, the frugality of this way of existence says something about him. Only Callen doesn't want to think about that, so most evenings he sits down on the floor and eats his takeaway food in silence. Once upon a time, a long time ago, it was his home, for a few months. And then he moved on to another foster family. Only now he has returned to this house and he is reluctant to turn it into a home once again. He's not quite sure why that is, but Callen is definite that he doesn't want to think about it. For the time being, this house is just somewhere to store his few belongings and a place to sleep, and that suits him fine. He doesn't need anything else. Why would he? Possessions only tie you down.

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, Callen is lonely. Once he had a wife, he even had a dog – but no more. He took nothing from the marriage, nothing except his memories. Sometimes he wonders about those – if there is no-one to share the past with, does it cease to exist? When they parted, was what they once had together lost forever? Does she ever think about the way things once were, the way **they** once were – and, just supposing that she does – does she cry, or is it only like a distant dream, something that happened to someone else? But she's gone and he's moved on and there are no regrets. Only he does miss the dog.

At the end of this particular day, Callen is just about to leave the Mission, in fact his hand is hovering over the light-switch when he hears footsteps and voices. Today was tough: things didn't work out. Sometimes that happens, but it never gets any easier. He's written his report, they all have, but you can't close off your feelings as easily as you can sign off a file. For once, he is not the only person who is reluctant to leave work and go home. Callen looks across at his team and sees the looks in their eyes and he knows that tonight is not a time for anyone to be alone. So, they all leave together, four people who are each alone in their different ways and they go on to have several beers and a few slices of pizza to soak up the alcohol. They know, without saying a word, exactly how each of the others is feeling and they need to be with him, just as much as Callen needs their company. Tonight, despite all that has gone before, was a good night.

At the end of the day, when he turns off the light and crawls into his sleeping bag, Callen decides that he is far too old to sleep on the floor like some college kid after an all-night party. He has to move on, to move forward or he's going to be stuck in the past forever. Maybe a bed would be a good first step. Along with a chair and a decent TV. He can always leave them behind if he decides to leave, it's not like he's making a commitment.

At the end of the day, when Callen finally closes his eyes, he thinks that he wouldn't have spent tonight any other way. He smiles as he recalls the stupid jokes; the way Kensi kept sneaking glances at Deeks when she thought he wasn't looking; the way Sam had clapped him on the shoulder and said "tough day", and Callen knows he's not alone after all – he's got his team. And, at the end of the day, maybe that is enough to be going on with. For now.


	2. Chapter 2

_Wow! I am completely blown away by the wonderful reviews: thank you so much. Another piece of introspection, this time focusing on Kensi, and her thoughts at the end of a difficult day._

At the end of the day, Kensi Blye sometimes feels like she has sold her soul to NCIS. When she looks at her friends, all she can see is people settling down with partners, moving up the corporate ladder, buying houses and even having babies. And here she is, still alone. This isn't how she'd planned things or how she had dreamt she would be living. Most of all, this isn't how it was meant to be: she's nearly thirty; she's still single and she's still living in a crummy rented apartment that's crammed so full of junk it looks like she's a prime candidate to star in the next series of _Hoarders_. And it's not like she had planned any of this – it all just happened and for some reason she is powerless to do anything about it, because what is the point in doing anything, even tidying up, when there's no-one to see the results, far less to share her life with?

At the end of the day, Kensi realises that she had planned her life around Jack; defined herself through him; become dependent on him. It has taken her a long time to get over him. For months after he left, she had a recurring dream that one morning she would open her front door and find him standing there, with that familiar sheepish smile on his face. And for far too long after he abandoned her, she would have welcomed him with open arms, thinking they could take up exactly where they had left off. But now Kensi realises that although she loved Jack, maybe even loved him too much, he never really loved her at all. Because if he had loved her, then he would never have left. That realisation wounds her, it sears into her soul and she thinks what a fool she was. Kensi has moved on a lot since then and if Jack were to appear tomorrow, she would feel nothing, except a lingering sense of betrayal and distaste. She vows never to be so dependent on a man ever again. Her life is so much better without him, except for the fact that Kensi hates being alone.

At the end of the day, Kensi knows that she is afraid of commitment. She loved her father – and he died. She loved Jack, but he left her. She loved Dom like some goofy little brother and she watched him die. She is scared to get too close to another man in case he hurts her. And yet she wants a man so desperately that it hurts, because Kensi knows she isn't any good at living alone. She misses being part of a couple and she feels incomplete by herself. She's got so much to share, so much love to give. But not just any man will do, for she knows that she has already lost her heart and that scares her so much she can barely admit it, even to herself.

At the end of this day, Kensi sits down on her couch and stares sightlessly at the television and thinks of her partner and all the endlessly fascinating things about him. She'll never tell him this, but she thinks of Deeks a lot and sometimes she finds herself just looking at him, for no good reason at all, except that he is so damn fine to look at. And she is caught in this trap of wanting to be with him and fighting back the terror of being abandoned again. Her jaw throbs and aches and she thinks the punch might have loosened a molar: today was not a good day.

At the end of the day, Kensi is often glad to leave the Mission. Sometimes all the testosterone floating around the air in an invisible miasma gets a bit too much for her and it's a relief to return to her apartment, shut the door behind her and be alone with all her wonderful clutter. It might look disorganised to an outsider, but she can locate every single item within seconds and having so many things around usually seems to validate her. But on nights like tonight the piles of junk seem to loom oppressively from every corner of the room and she feels trapped, caught in a spider's web of her own making. And at times like these, Kensi wonders how things went so very wrong that she has ended up living on her own like this. It wasn't meant to be like this, she tells herself. I'm not meant to be alone.

At the end of the day, Kensi knows she's losing her heart to her partner and that she can only keep up her demeanour of being cool, aloof and self-sufficient for so long. Sooner or later she is going to crack. She thinks back to when she trapped in the net of laser beams and how Deeks reached out to her – and how much she had trusted him then. Holding onto his hands had made her feel so secure, it was as if she had finally come home. He hadn't let her down. He was even prepared to risk his own life to save her. And the memory of lying on top of him after the explosion even manages to bring a smile to her lips. Kensi's jaw is still aching, but the pain doesn't seem quite so bad now that she thinks how safe she felt lying in his arms.

At the end of the day, Kensi opens her door and Deeks is standing there, clutching a six-pack of beer and a paper bag full of take-away food. When she looks at him, her heart skips a beat and Kensi knows there is no-one she would rather see, nobody she would rather be with and that maybe she can trust him with her heart. And when Deeks smiles at her, Kensi opens the door wide, lets him into her life and suddenly she's not afraid any longer.


	3. Chapter 3

**At The End of the Day - Chapter Three: Sam**

_Sam's an enigmatic man, and we don't know much about his personal life – this is my take on it._

* * *

><p>At the end of the day, Sam Hannah normally can't wait to get out of the Mission. He's got other things to do, other places to be – he's got this whole other life going on and it's important. It's the most important thing in the world. He's not going to let his kid down again: he's going to be there, like a proper father should be. So he tries to juggle his life – his work and his role as a separated father, but he knows which one wins hands down. It's just a pity that so many things get in the way of him spending much time with his kid. More than anything, Sam regrets that. Maybe if he had a regular 9 to 5 job things would be different? But Sam is a realist, so he does the best that he can and he hides the hurt he feels at missing so much and the guilt he feels at being absent so much.<p>

At the end of the day, Sam finds it difficult to let go. It was hard watching his kid take those first unaided steps, while he had to sit there and watch, and not reach out a helping hand. And anyway, he knows his hand probably would have been swatted imperiously away, because his kid is just like him: stubborn and too independent for his own good. And now his kid is at school, that's harder still. He followed the school bus every day for a week, not caring that he was breaking his own cardinal rule and having a routine. God, it bothers him that his kid could be a target. Why didn't he ever think of that before he got into this whole fatherhood thing? So maybe he's over-protective? Maybe he's got a good reason to be. Kids are vulnerable – everyone knows that, and Sam knows it better than most.

At the end of the day, Sam knows he can't save everyone, but that doesn't stop him trying. Not just his kid, but other people's kids too, those who don't have fathers to look out for them. But that doesn't always work out either. He tried to help Mo, and look what happened there. Sam hates the fact that he doesn't live with his kid, that his relationship didn't work out. That's not the way it was supposed to be. He'd vowed he was going to be a good father, and good fathers are there for their children. So how come he lives half-way across town and has a job that takes him all-over the world at a moment's notice, not mention putting his life on the line on an almost daily basis?

At the end of the day, Sam doesn't talk about his kid. There are no pictures on his desk, and none in his wallet. He's pretty sure the team know the bare details, but he's never volunteered any more information and even Kensi hasn't tried to find out more. His private life is just that: private. He's made it clear his kid is off-limits, and even Callen doesn't go there. Sam suspects that Hetty knows more than most, but then that is par for the course, where Hetty is concerned. Hetty knows everything about everyone. Some people might call her nosey, but Hetty refers to it as being "thorough". She's probably right. And of course, there are the details entered into his personnel file, just in case. His kid will be well taken care of, if anything happens.

At the end of this day, Sam is longing to get home. Today he has saved another man's son, brought him safely out of a terrorist camp and delivered the boy back to his father. That was a result. Only right now Sam is sitting on a plane on the way back from Yemen and it's going to be several hours before they land in LA. He knows that by the time he's gone through all the debriefing process it will be well after midnight, so there will be now no way he is going to get to see his kid tonight. Sam can just imagine the reaction he'd get if he turned up at the house in the small hours of the morning. They've tried to keep things civilised, in the way that separated parents do, but it is really a case of barely-veiled hostilities and insincere pleasantries forced out through clenched teeth. But today of all days, he should have been there for his kid.

At the end of the day, Sam feels like a failure. A family isn't meant to live apart. He's not there for his child, not in the ways he'd vowed he would be; not in the ways a good father should be. And his new lady knows he has a child, but they haven't met yet, because it is still early days and Sam wants to make sure he knows where things are going before he introduces more changes into his kid's life. He sighs and moves restlessly in the narrow airline seat, which wasn't made to accommodate people of his stature in any degree of comfort. Next to him, Callen snores gently and Sam wishes he could sleep too.

At the end of the day, Sam is walking slowly through the airport terminal, conscious of how weary he is and hoping Hetty has sent someone to meet them, because he's too tired to think straight, let alone drive. He just wants to get the next couple of hours over with, and then he can go home, grab a few hours sleep and then try to make things up to his kid tomorrow. Only for some strange reason, when he looks ahead, he can see Hetty herself is standing at the arrivals gate. Sam starts to get worried, but as he draws nearer, he can see that she is holding the hand of a child, who starts to jump up and down with glee and shouts "Daddy!".

At the end of the day, Sam watches incredulously as his kid sprints towards him and leaps into his arms and he knows that he is home. He looks across at Hetty and Callen and sees that they are both smiling and he knows that he has been set up, and he couldn't give a damn. Today is his kid's birthday and somehow they've arranged it so that they can spend at least part of the day together. He doesn't know how they've managed it and he doesn't much care, because at the end of the day all Sam knows is that is the best present any man could have.


	4. Chapter 4

_This chapter examines how Deeks really feels about things in the early part of season two, when he's still finding his feet with the NCIS team._

At the end of the day, Marty Deeks is usually relieved to get out of work and down to the beach. This is where he can be himself. He's tired of pretending: going undercover and pretending to be someone else; making like he doesn't realise the NCIS agents resent his presence and trying to deflect things with bad jokes that only seem to make things worse; and most of all, he's tired of pretending that he doesn't notice the way Kensi looks at him. She's always looking at him – he keeps catching the glances she throws at him out of the corner of his eye and he wonders why. What is up with the woman? So he goes down to the beach and he can be completely alone, no matter how many people are there, because once he gets into the zone, it's just him and the ocean.

At the end of the day, Deeks often wonders exactly who he is and so far, there's not been a wave that can answer that question. Sure, he's a cop, but he's never been flavour of the month with his colleagues. It probably would have been a good idea to keep his big mouth shut and his head down, but that's never been his style. And what really gets him is that he's a damn good cop, with the best arrest record on the force. Only now he's been pushed into the liaison position with NCIS, so now he's neither a cop nor is he an agent. He's somewhere in the middle and neither side really wants him. It's like being back at school again and being the kid nobody wants to have on their team. That's what's so great about surfing, he thinks. There's nobody else involved, it's just him against the ocean. And sometimes he feels like he should just get on his board, start to paddle out and just keep on going.

At the end of the day, when it is getting to dark to surf any longer, Deeks takes one last ride, revelling in the power of the ocean, the sheer elemental force that you can only attempt to harness, never to conquer. And then he walks back up the beach to where he has left his things, grabs a towel and roughly dries his hair. Further along the beach someone has lit a bonfire and he recognises the voices that float across the evening air towards him. These guys only know him as a fellow surfer: they don't know anything else about him and that's fine. In fact, it's just great. So he mooches over, his wetsuit unpeeled down the waist and a ratty shirt pulled on carelessly. He fits in here, among the jokes and laughter, the bottles of beer and the offer of a joint. He takes it gratefully, inhales deeply and feels the sweet release burning down into his lungs. At last, he can relax, knowing he is accepted on his own terms.

At the end of this day, Deeks lies in a darkened hospital room, surrounded by monitors, with lines going in and out of his body and he is consumed by pain. Two bullets to the chest is never going to be much fun, even if they were low calibre. And it hurts like hell. And then Sam had to rub salt into his wounds, basically telling saying he was unprofessional and therefore a liability. Only it was funny how things turned out: none of the NCIS agents could work out what was happening, so that it took him dragging himself out of his bed to save Kensi's ass, and managing to pull his wounds open in the process, causing yet more damage. That probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. But hey – she's got a cute ass. He notices things like that. Like the way she looks at him. Deeks still hasn't got to the bottom of that yet, but he will, given time.

At the end of the day, Deeks opens his eyes, sees that Hetty is sitting at the side of his bed and wonders if by some chance he has died and this is purgatory. The ocean has never seemed further away than it does right now and he realises that he is trapped, much in the same way as she trapped him into joining NCIS in the first place. He's not really surprised to discover that Hetty knows all about his background, because he remembers how she had already filled out his application form and all he had to do was to sign it. And now she's managed to get him to agree to name her as his next of kin. Deeks thinks that they must be giving him some very good drugs indeed.

At the end of the day, Deeks has done things that make him feel sick when he thinks about them He's lived undercover posing as low-life scum and he knows that the anger and violence that consumed Max Gentry came from somewhere within himself. It wasn't all an act. Sometimes he scares himself and then he wonders if he really wants to go on living this life. At least the drugs they're giving him are good though, they're letting him slide away into oblivion where all these thoughts won't bother him any longer.

At the end of the day, Deeks opens his eyes again, and this time Kensi is sitting beside his bed, and she looks tired. More than that, she looks like she's been crying. As he shakes off the last remnants of sleep, he realises that she is holding his hand and, more than that she is stroking it gently. He turns his head to look at her and the look of relief in her eyes almost overwhelms him and the smile she gives him is nearly enough to send the heart monitor into over-drive.

"You had me worried," she says and leans over to kiss him. Deeks lies there stunned, wondering if the hospital are now putting hallucinogenic drugs into their pain meds. But he manages to kiss her back and notices that she tastes of powdered sugar and cherries and something he can't quite place. And he would have gone on kissing her, except there is the sound of someone clearing their throat.

"Nice shooting." Callen is standing at the end of his bed, with a wry, sympathetic look on his face.

"Don't make yourself such an obvious target next time though." Sam smiles, to show he's just joking.

At the end of the day, they are here for him and it feels good. Maybe he doesn't need the ocean after all? Maybe he just needed to realise that he's not alone after all – he's part of a team?


End file.
